‘Students don’t always tell teachers the truth very often, do they.’ Reflections on the implications when teachers and students collaborate to investigate teaching practice.

Informed by Martin Buber’s notions of ‘I-It’ and ‘I-Thou’ relationships, this paper examines the problematic and contested issues of the emancipation and empowerment in schooling. Specifically, it explores what happens when teachers and students collaborate when observing lessons and commenting on teaching practice in the imagined space of the self-improving school system. Within this space, it examines the challenges and complexities of establishing ‘I-Thou’ teacher-student relationships, and the potential for creative dissonance in such situations. Finally, it explores the idea that the self-improving school could become a place where teachers and students create a space for mutual dialogue about collaborative research in the classroom – in other words, a place where classroom practice is democratically ‘top-down’ teacher-led and ‘bottom-up’ student-informed.


Research with students about teaching practice
Acknowledging a moral commitment to the empowering purpose of education, this paper examines the implications for the participants when lesson observation systems allow and empower students to observe teachers and to offer feedback on their teaching practice. It considerswhetherelicitingandlisteningtothevoicesofstudentsaboutteacherpracticecould haveapositiveimpactupontheperformanceofbothstudentsandtheirteachers.Italsoexplores theneedtolistento,andvalue,'teachervoice',andexamineshowincreasedstudentvoicecan leadtofurtherand,perhaps,unexpecteddevelopmentsinthewaypowerisdistributedandused intheclassroom.

Ethical considerations
Wheninvitinghiscolleaguetoparticipateintheresearchproject,theauthorwasacutelyaware of the implications the change could have for her: the potential erosion of the traditionally defined power balance between student and teacher; the vulnerability of opening herself up to explicit criticism of her teaching and classroom practice; whether the trust necessary to ensureconfidentialitywouldbeobservedbythestudentparticipants;and,finally,theriskofbeing accused by colleagues of allowing senior management to introduce student-led observations. Oneconsciousdecisionwasnottorushtheteacher;toallowhertimeforreflection,freedom towithdrawfromtheprocess,andtoseekclarificationwhennecessary.Stepswerealsotaken toensuretheteacherwascomfortablewiththeselectionofstudentswhowouldobserveher teach.Thestudentswereinformedastotheteacherinvolvedandgivenachancetoexpressany concernstheymayhavehad.

I-Thou relationships in the classroom
Consideringtheaimsofthestudy,itisinstructivetoseehowitillustratesthecomplexitiesof establishing I-Thou teacher-student relationships in the classroom, and particularly when the participants'actionscausethemtocreateandoccupyacontestedspaceforresearchthatis'inbetween'theirtraditionalrolesofteacherandstudent.

Discussion
The self-improving school system: Whose agenda, whose agency?
Asmentionedearlier,criticsofthetop-downapproachtochangeineducationhavelong argued the case for empowering teachers to critically examine prescribed knowledge and practices,andtodiscover,andown,formsofknowledgeandwaysofworkingforthemselves. Considering the study's wider implications, it draws attention to the idea that, in the selfimproving school system, teachers and students are encouraged and empowered to create a spaceformutualdialogueaboutthepossibilitiesforcollaborativeresearchintheclassroom.This requiresanenvironmentwhereresearchaboutteachingandlearningisacollaborativeteacherstudentventure;anditrequiresschoolswhereclassroompracticeisdemocraticallytop-down teacher-guidedandbottom-upstudent-informed. Man and Man(1947).Itwasan addresstotheThirdInternationalEducationalConference,Heidelberg,August1925.

Notes on the contributors
TonyLeach(PhD)isaSeniorLecturerintheFacultyofEducationandTheologyatYorkStJohnUniversity. As well as being a teacher and a supervisor of undergraduate and postgraduate research, his research andwritingsarefocusedonthetopicsofschoolsasresearch-informedlearningcommunities, graduate employment,andcareerexperiences.